COLUMN: VINYL VLOG 064

ARTIST: Vinyl Vlog 064A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the vinyl release of Drag by Lagwagon.DATE: 03-01-15

WRITER: Ollie Ottoman

I owe a debt of gratitude to Lagwagon. They are one of the bands that introduced me to punk rock in high school and served as a stepping stone to the world of DIY music in general. However, they are not the most prolific band out there; even though they consistently put out good music, their last album was released in 2005 and gave plenty of time
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COLUMN: VINYL VLOG 063

ARTIST: Vinyl Vlog 063A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the vinyl version of Thinky Pain by Marc MaronDATE: 02-27-15

WRITER: Ollie Ottoman

Marc Maron's time has finally come! I'm not sure if that sentence has applied for years, but it most certainly applies for me right now. That's bizarre considering my love of standup comedy and the fact that Maron has been at it for over thirty years. However, it's only in the past two or three years that I've really started
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COLUMN: VINYL VLOG 062

ARTIST: Vinyl Vlog 062A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the Northern Register LP by Community Theatre.DATE: 02-27-15

WRITER: Bill Adams

The problem with so many co-operative albums (those which feature contributions from several artists of different sound or discipline) is that, more often than not, many of those artists involved default into making the sort of music they're most comfortable with, and pull together perfectly trite and formulaic songs as a result. That is not
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COLUMN: VINYL VLOG 061

ARTIST: Vinyl Vlog 061A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the vinyl version of This Machine Kills Artists by King Buzzo.DATE: 02-25-15

WRITER: Bill Adams

On the most superficial level, making an album like This Machine Kills Artists should be the definition of simplicity. How could it not be? The arrangements for the songs have already been written and the design has been set so simply stripping away the trappings installed by a record producer as well as the other instruments which are usually in
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COLUMN: VINYL VLOG 060

ARTIST: Vinyl Vlog 060A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the vinyl version of Hold It In by the MelvinsDATE: 02-18-15

WRITER: Bill Adams

It might sound a little deliberately contrary but, in the current “more is more” music industry landscape (where more variant releases of albums on more formats with different track lists are the norm), the biggest, longest variant of an album isn't always the best one. The vinyl incarnation of Hold It In – The
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COLUMN: I WANNA BE LITERATED! 079

It's only halfway through reading Cat and Girl that for me to enjoy the comic, I have to come to accept that the jokes don't have a punch line. It's probably more precise to say that I don't get the punchlines. Which also serves me just fine.

COLUMN: I WANNA BE LITERATED! 078

ARTIST: I Wanna Be Literated! 078A deeper look into the pages of Alexandra Kollontai: a Biography by Cathy PorterDATE: 02-17-15

WRITER: Ollie Ottoman

Alexandra Kollontai was a revolutionary Russian Communist, the only woman in the first Bolshevik government of 1917, and one of its few original members to survive the reign of Stalin. In this updated biography, Cathy Porter draws from memoirs, diary entries, and letters to paint a very complex picture of a somewhat neglected historical figure.
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COLUMN: I WANNA BE LITERATED! 077

ARTIST: I Wanna Be Literated! 077A critical evaluation of No Simple Highway - A Cultural History of The Grateful Dead by Peter RichardsonDATE: 02-11-15

WRITER: Bill Adams

I would never have considered myself the ideal critic to review No Simple Highway – or any book about The Grateful Dead for that matter. Growing up, it wsn't so much that I wasn't interested in The Dead (I listened to lots of different kinds of music), it's just that the band wasn't in my sphere; I knew they existed
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COLUMN: I WANNA BE LITERATED! 076

ARTIST: I Wanna Be Literated! 076A critical evaluation of The Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll.DATE: 02-10-15

WRITER: Bill Adams

I remember the first time I read The Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll. I was in eighth grade and a girl in my homeroom handed me her copy to borrow. I wasn't thrilled at the prospect, at first – I didn't know anything about it, wasn't a huge basketball fan, didn't know who Jim Carroll was and was just at the tail
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FEATURES: VINYL VLOG 059

ARTIST: Vinyl Vlog 059A deeper look into the grooves pressed into Ausmuteants' Order of OperationDATE: 02-09-15

WRITER: Ollie Ottoman

There are two things you can expect from a Goner record: it’s either going to be gritty and garage-y or Australian-y in nature. Ausmuteants have covered both those bases. Describing the Ausmuteants’ sound is equally fun. Mix equal parts Devo, with the Eddy Current Suppression Ring, and the Spits. The point
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FEATURES: I WANNA BE LITERATED! 075

It tickles my fancy seeing punks so fully embrace independent comics and actually improve the medium. Perhaps this reflects a punk ethos of sorts or maybe it's just that they hold themselves to the same standards as "professionals" do. These people take their work seriously.